Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a character created by Wes Craven and is the main villain and killer from the slasher film series A Nightmare on Elm Street. In 1968 he was burned to death by the citizens of Springwood. After his death he began killing the children of the city in their dreams.

Contents

Biography

Life Story

Amanda Krueger was a nun working in a hospital, and was raped by over 100 psychopaths. She became pregnant with a son, who was named Freddy. Later in his life he became a murderer in Springwood notorious for killing children. The media labeled him the Springwood Slasher. He was apprehended, but later released because of a technicality. According to the original film, it was because someone didn't sign the search warrant in the appropriate place. The parents of the children tracked him down and found him in the boiler room where he took his victims. The parents poured gas into the room and set him on fire, which caused his melted-like facial features.

Film series events

In A Nightmare on Elm Street through A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Krueger was referred to as an urban legend. The Elm Street parents remained tight-lipped about the events of the decade before, especially now that their children were teenagers. In the closing months of 1981, the children of Springwood, in particular those teens whose parents had formed the mob that killed Krueger, began dying in peculiar ways as they slept. The parents often ignored or denied the pleas of their terrified children, who told tales of a mysterious man named Freddy who was terrorizing them in their dreams.

Krueger met three notable female adversaries in the period before Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare:

Kristen Parker (Patricia Arquette/Tuesday Knight): Kristen was a girl with the ability to bring people into her dreams. In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, she, along with the last surviving “Elm Street children” battled Freddy in the dream world using self imaginative dream powers. Kristen used her natural gift of pulling others into her dream as a way for the group to battle Freddy at the same time. She was killed by Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master by being tossed into his boiler and burnt to death.

Death

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger

After a decade of systematically slaughtering all of the children of Springwood in their dreams, the town was shown to be under Freddy’s influence in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. By absorbing the souls of his victims, Freddy was now powerful enough to blur the lines between dreams and reality. The remaining adults were kept in a mass psychosis after their children had been murdered. When there was no one left to kill, Freddy sought to leave Springwood — hoping to continue his murder spree in another town full of more children. Only one person could arrange for this to happen — his daughter, Kathryn Krueger.

Krueger used what was left of his supernatural powers to find his daughter, who was now an adult named "Maggie Burroughs" (Lisa Zane) and was working as a counselor to troubled teenagers in another city. Since her mother's death, Maggie was raised by adoptive parents and had suppressed the disturbing memories of her early childhood. After catching up with Maggie, Krueger attempted to convince her to do his bidding. She proved, though, that a compulsion for murder was not hereditary and instead schemed with Doc (Yaphet Kotto), her coworker (and dream psychiatrist), to help destroy Krueger. After pulling him out of her dream and into reality, Maggie stabbed Krueger in the abdomen with his own glove and then shoved a pipe bomb into Krueger's chest, effectively killing him and releasing the dream demons that had given him his power.

Other supposed deaths

The following is a list of times Freddy Krueger is killed or supposedly killed in each of the movies in the series.

Before the main events of the series, Freddy's mortal death took place in 1968 when the Parents of Elm Street burned him to death in a gasoline explosion in the boiler room where he had killed their children. Freddy was allowed to live on in dreams by three dream demons who travel the world, searching for the most evil soul.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street he is supposedly killed when Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) turns her back on him, draining his energy and making him disappear. However, he is not entirely gone, and somehow pulls her into a dream world (which she is eventually shown to have escaped in the third installment).

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, Freddy is supposedly killed when Lisa Webber (Kim Myers) is able to reach Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton), who Freddy is possessing. Due to the love between the two teenagers, Freddy is unable to continue possessing Jesse and burns to death. He apparently possesses Lisa's friend Kerry at the end of the film and is back to normal in the sequel.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Freddy's mortal bones are laid to rest by Neil Gordon (Craig Wasson), who then puts holy water and shines a cross on them, causing Freddy to vanish in the dream world. He returns in the sequel when he possesses Roland Kincaid's dog Jason and makes him go to the dream version of his burial site and dig him up.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, Alice Johnson holds a mirror shard in front of Freddy, reflecting his evil back at him and causing the souls of all the victims he had collected to tear him apart from the inside. He returns in the sequel by using the dreams of Alice's unborn son Jacob Johnson to enter the dreams of Alice and her friends.

In Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Freddy is stabbed with his own bladed glove by his daughter, Maggie Burroughs (Lisa Zane), and then blown up with a pipe bomb. The explosion completely destroys Freddy and releases the dream demons giving him his power. Though Freddy actually dies in the real world at this point, he is able to come back from Hell in Freddy vs Jason by manipulating Jason Voorhees into killing residents of Springwood, giving him enough fear (and thus power) to return.

In Freddy vs Jason, he is stabbed by Jason Voorhees with his own bladed glove (which is torn off his body, along with the rest of his right arm), and then decapitated by Lori Campbell (Monica Keea) with Jason's machete. At the end of the film, Jason is shown carrying Freddy's head out of Crystal Lake, and the head looks at the audience and winks, signaling Freddy is still very much alive.

Battle with Jason Voorhees

Freddy taunting Kia

In the hybrid sequel, Freddy vs. Jason, Freddy was trapped in Hell. After Maggie defeated Krueger in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, the people of Springwood sought to revitalize their town. Figuring out how Krueger operated, the authorities and town officials covered up any and all traces of his prior existence, which included blacking out obituaries and quarantining anyone who had ever dreamed about, or had any knowledge of Krueger. Other countermeasures included giving Hypnocil, a drug that prevents people from dreaming, to the children moved to Westin Hills. As a result, Springwood returned to obscurity and subsequently repopulated with no ill effects.

Meanwhile, Krueger was unable to escape the boundaries of Hell, thanks to the complete ignorance of his existence to the people of Springwood, and the use of Hypnocil to prevent those in Westin Hills from dreaming. Due to the fact that no one so much as knew of him, much less feared him, Freddy was unable to gain enough power to escape. Thus, Freddy hatched a plan to resurrect the undead, immortal killing machine, Jason Voorhees. First, at the conclusion of Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday, Freddy pulled Jason's abandoned mask into the ground. Then, in the disguise of Jason's mother, Pamela, Freddy manipulated Jason into rising from the dead once more and going to Elm Street to kill more teenagers.
Jason committed a few murders, which were then blamed on Krueger (as planned). As a result, Krueger began to get his equilibrium back. Enough fear fell over Springwood to make Krueger strong enough to haunt the town again. The problem, which Krueger had not counted on, was that Jason would not stop killing. He became irritated when Jason continued to slaughter "his kids" before he could. Thus, a bloody fight ensued between the two murderous icons that raged from the dream world to the waking world at Jason's old haunt, Camp Crystal Lake. The film ends with Jason walking out of Crystal Lake holding Krueger's decapitated head, which he winks to the audience, followed by Krueger's laughter, indicating his reign of terror may not yet be over.

Freddy's Rhyme

In the movies, Freddy's arrival is usually preceded by children in the dreams of his victims. They chant a rhyme about Freddy that warns others to stay away from him.

Freddy's murders

Apart from about 20 children that he killed before he was burned alive by the parents of Elm Street, he killed around 40 after he fused with the dream demons and became able to enter dreams from 1981-1989. Freddy's major kills include:

It is revealed that prior to the events of Freddy VS Jason, Freddy murdered her.

Powers and Abilities

As long as his victims were dreaming, Krueger could inhabit and control their dreams, twisting them to his own ends. He is also capable of entering a victim's mind via state of intoxication, whether the victim is drunk or stoned. Any physical harm done to a person in this dream world would carry over into the real world, though exactly how differs significantly between films, allowing him to easily commit multiple murders. Krueger often toyed with his victims by changing his form and surroundings, usually resembling the boiler room where he brought his child victims that had been missing in town. He also has the power to manipulate or possess any object or part of the dream environment not kept exclusively on the person of his victim at all times after initial creation, as he does in the fifth and sixth films.

His powers increased from those originally granted to him based on how many knew and feared his existence as well as how many souls were in his current possession. At the height of his powers, he could cause severe damage in the real world. This included possession of humans (as shown in the second Nightmare film, briefly in the fifth, and Freddy vs Jason), his corpse (as shown in the third), objects or animals (also shown in the second) or even literally pulling a victim from the waking world into the dream world (as shown in the fifth Nightmare film). If one of Freddy's victims wakes up while they're holding onto him in the dream world, he can be carried into the real world where he is still superhumanly strong and durable, but can be wounded. This was used for extensive fight scenes in the first Nightmare film, Freddy's Dead, and Freddy vs Jason.

In a person's own dream, Krueger could see into their minds and use their deepest fears and personality against them, which became his trademark in the films, at times taking the image of previous victims to help lure friends or relatives to their doom. A few victims managed to use their own imagination to consciously manipulate their dreams against him, a technique known as lucid dreaming, but this typically had little effect on Krueger, who remained in control of their dreams. Another of Krueger's powers involved absorbing the souls of his victims into his own body after they had been killed, which served to make him more powerful. As he gained a victim, their face would appear on his chest, each soul augmenting his power. Each soul he takes grants him the attributes of the victim. This has lead him to acquire skills such as martial arts skills, and high durability. In addition, he is a shapeshifter and can turn into anything, such as a cockroach. He can also use this power on others; in The Dream Master, he kills Debbie by transforming her into a cockroach and then crushing her inside a roach motel.

Weakness and Vulnerabilities

If he does not have enough power he can't kill anyone, in the dream world or real world.

If most people have forgoten him then he is trapped in Hell and there for can't harm anyone in the real world or dream world (as seen in Freddy vs Jason).

Freddy is afraid of fire, as seen in Freddy vs Jason.

Jack Henry Dappen

In other media

Freddy has appeared in some episodes of Robot Chicken, such as the episode "That Hurts Me", where he appears alongside Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Ghostface, Pinhead, and Leatherface in the Big Brother show, where his sweater is shrunk by Ghostface, and he is later stabbed by Michael, which doesn't damage him but annoys him.

Freddy appeared in the movie Stan Helsing as an antagonist.His appearance is changed, as he does not have the red and green sweater, and his face is even more burned than in his series. He does have his clawed glove as finger gadgets ,equipped with a toothbrush, and still invades people's dreams. He is renamed Fweddy. He is the first to be defeated; Stan uses a whip to take his clawed glove away, leaving him powerless, and he runs off.

Freddy also appeared in the Imagination Land episode of South Park with other iconic villains such as Jason and the Xenomorph. He later appeared in the episode "Insheeption", where Freddy has a family and were hired to help peoples trapped in a dream.

In the Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty,a parody of Freddy in the episode "Lawnmower Dog" named Scary Terry appears.His catchphrase is "bitch",he has tiny swords on his gloves instead of knives and his clothing and body colour have diffrent colour schemes.

Trivia

It's highly possible that he is based on SUNDS (or Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome), a disease that, coincidently, also involves a nightmare that would kill the victim... Even more coincident is that both use fear (Freddy uses it for power and SUNDS uses it to kill). The only difference between the two is that Freddy actually murders the victims while SUNDS simply "scares them to death"...